Black Friday deals targeting 'self gifters'

I’ve seen lots of bad behavior from shoppers during the Black Friday sales frenzy. Over the years, I have acquired my own battle scars during the fray.

I’ve witnessed fist fights over $3.88 appliances, items taken out of my cart, had the back of my heels injured by careless cart pushers and heard language not fit for anyone.

It’s a lot to go through, not even considering cold weather and lack of sleep.

If you miss the sale, don’t think that you’ve missed the only chance to find deals this holiday season. There are many deals still out there. With a plan, you can stay on budget.

Like many other deal hunters, I spent several hours checking the Black Friday sales ads to plan out my shopping strategy, but overall I was disappointed in the offerings. I couldn’t help but notice that the best deals were mainly big ticket items and that there just weren’t many deals on moderate gifts people are most likely to purchase for family members.

These big ticket deals are not the items that you would buy for your children, or the cookware or hardware sets that you might buy for the adults on your list. Instead, the biggest deals on Black Friday were for items that the retailers hope you would buy for yourself.

I understand why people would want to save up and wait until the Christmas season to purchase large gifts such as computers, cameras, iPads, or other electronics, but this is not the market that retailers are targeting this year. Instead, retailers are looking hard at the new trend of “self-gifting” to encourage shoppers to spend more. With so many consumers trying to recover from the effects of Hurricane Sandy, economic worries and rising gas prices, retailers are looking for any silver lining in consumer shopping trends.

Retailers are hoping you see a deal that you just can’t pass up.

“As a nod to just how much shoppers enjoy taking advantage of retailers’ holiday promotions to treat themselves to something nice, consumers are expected to spend the most on non-gift items in the survey’s 10-year history,” the National Retail Federation reported. “Six in 10 shoppers (59 percent) plan to spend an average of $139.92 on ‘self-gifting’ this holiday season.”

For the shopping day known as Cyber Monday, many companies will be offering steep discounts online all day. Earlier, I reported that Amazon is expected to surpass Walmart’s online sales this year. This has already started a deal showdown between the two. This past week Walmart offered several Black Friday deals and will continue to offer deals all the way up until Christmas. Amazon is also planning several sales over the next few weeks.

If you have an item on your shopping list but it wasn’t on sale for Black Friday, I highly suggest you look online Monday.

If you have already fallen victim to the temptation of self-gifting, don’t beat yourself up. Now is a great time to buy these items, and as long as you can still spend money on others why not take advantage of the sales?

Just keep a list of people you need to shop for in your purse or wallet to keep you from buying items unnecessarily.